


One Last Time

by Galpalkru



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, I call this trashy angst, Maybe not that shameless?, Shameless Smut, i honestly don't know, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:31:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galpalkru/pseuds/Galpalkru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beca and Chloe, based on the Ariana Grande song ‘One Last Time.’ Not sure what else to say here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> I guess song fics are my theme lately? I DON’T KNOW. HAVE SOME TRASHY A F ANGST. KBYE.  
> P.S. This was originally going to be a minific. WHAT HAPPENED.

There were many things that Chloe Beale was good at. Harmonizing, Aguilerian runs, normal runs (of the vertical variety), choreography; the list really went on and on. Controlling herself around Beca Mitchell was not on that list.

 

So maybe she’d fallen flat on her face, head over heels for the tiny alt girl she’d seen across the activities fair, and this immediate attraction was not at all mollified after seeing Beca naked in the shower, because damn _._ Add in the voice and the fact that, despite her best efforts, Beca was one of the most loyal and caring people Chloe had ever met, and Chloe was screwed. Okay, maybe special mention had to be given yet again to Beca and her boobs, because really just _damn._

 

And Aubrey had warned her right from the very beginning, pulling Chloe aside when she couldn’t shut up about Beca on the way home after the riff-off. For the first time, she’d performed what she came to call the “Mitchell Ritual,” grabbing Chloe by the shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes, and saying, “she will hurt you. She will take you and break you and leave you on the ground without a second thought. _Let her go._ ”

 

The first few times, Chloe had just laughed it off, rolling her eyes and hip-checking Aubrey before assuring her that she was just overreacting and that Chloe had Tom and Beca had Jesse and there wouldn’t be any issues. After Nationals, however, when Chloe and Beca had locked eyes as they hoisted that trophy overhead, only to have Beca hop off stage, sling her arms around Jesse and pull him close, the jig was up.

 

They’d missed the after-party that year, Chloe curled up beneath Aubrey’s arm, back against the bath tub in their hotel room, ignoring even the blasting bass of the after-party Stacie eventually hosted next door. A bottle of wine, a pint of ice cream, and a few hours later, Chloe had joined the rest of the Bellas in congratulating Beca on her new relationship with Jesse. And that had been that.

 

The Mitchell Ritual continued over the next few years, at least the Skype edition, as Chloe continually failed Russian Lit because “she’d just gotten distracted” or “she really put too much time into Chem and didn’t realize it until it was too late” or, eventually, “the Bellas just needed her.” Of course, that sentence had begun as “Beca just needed her” or maybe “she just needed Beca.” She never was really sure.

 

So Chloe and Beca (and auxiliary support system Aubrey) existed in a certain equilibrium for two more years and two more national championships. And, like clockwork, every time Chloe had just assured herself that Tom was enough for her and that Jesse was enough for Beca, they sat too close during Bella movie night, Beca blushed just a bit too hard at one of her winks, or any one of those tiny moments that really meant the world to Chloe.

 

Until there was no more Tom. And soon after, there was no more Jesse.

 

It was funny how it all fell apart; Tom had already been a year below Chloe in school, and, if anyone was going to have to stick with a five-year-plan, it was him, bless his heart. But by the time Chloe was about to enter her fourth senior year, Tom was ready to leave Barden, and he wanted Chloe to come with him. She really thought about it; New York was supposed to be the land of opportunity as a twenty-something, and Tom had found a surprisingly decent apartment on the way Upper East Side. But, somehow, that Russian Lit exam really just got into her head, and it was no longer in her control. Fifteen apologies and a few tears later, Tom was on the next plane out of Atlanta, nothing but a hug and a sad, knowing smile left behind.

 

Beca and Jesse were a little less clear. Chloe had been privy to any and all of their relationship struggles, because what girl wouldn’t share every detail of her dating life with her best friend? So it was simple stuff, like Beca not loving how Jesse dressed or the fact that every date turned into a movie night where he actually wanted to watch the movie (Chloe had really had to bite her tongue on that one), and for the most part, Chloe had talked her down from the precarious breakup cliff. Because that’s what best friends did.

 

She’d really only found out about their breakup via text the summer between Beca’s junior and senior year. It was almost hilariously nonchalant, sandwiched between an argument about Iggy Azalea and Beca’s not so subtle segue into the sectionals set-list for next year. And Chloe would’ve been lying if she said she didn’t literally drop her phone when she read it, calling up Aubrey for a very necessary reality check before offering Beca her condolences and raising the idea of working some T-Swift into the mix.

 

They both spent that last year endlessly “single and ready to mingle.” Every Bellas wine night came with an inevitable discussion of dating lives, Stacie taking the lead yet always prompting Beca and Chloe to share as the rest of the room fell silent. Chloe would roll her eyes, waving her hand as nonchalantly as she could manage and saying that, “she always had someone in the mix.” Beca’s turn began with a shrug, her eyes falling to the floor as she chewed on her lip in that agonizing manner that never failed to briefly short-circuit Chloe’s brain before she made some excuse about being busy and turned to Emily, sure in the knowledge that the freshman’s lack of a verbal filter would distract everyone for long enough that they’d forget about her avoidance tactics. Well, almost everyone.

 

So maybe Chloe had yelled at Beca at the retreat for a bit more than her secret internship, four years of tension and frustration rising up with a convenient excuse. Being an angry crier took some of the bite out of her attempted indignation, but there was a certain part of her that knew it hit home, Beca visibly jolting backwards at every word Chloe spat out.

 

But they’d made up, and fallen into that game again around the campfire as Chloe, against every piece of her better judgment, had broken out in Beca’s audition song that she’d spoken of so many times to the rest of the Bellas, how she’d known that Beca was going to help them win and change things and…Well, the rest was up for interpretation. And that second too long where they’d held each other’s eye contact had turned into moments, minutes, and what felt like hours, until they were the last ones around the campfire, when even Aubrey seemed to accept some sort of inevitability.

 

And for a while, they’d just talked, moving subtly closer and closer until their hands were touching. Which wasn’t weird, because they’d been in this situation time and time again. They held hands on a regular basis, at movie nights, waiting in line at Starbucks, when Chloe just got a little too wound up…but okay, Beca’s hand didn’t normally make its way up Chloe’s side to the back of her neck.

 

Beca’s lips certainly didn’t normally grow insistent and needy against Chloe’s own as she gave into the pressure of that hand which moved to grip Chloe by the strap of her tank top and drag her into Beca’s lap. And Chloe really had no option at that point, because this was real and this was happening, even if it was surely going to be cut off at any second by an Aubrey intervention, Amy falling out of a tree, or Emily just _having_ to share some new idea for a song right at that instant.

 

But instead, they only paused for an instant as Beca moved them to the ground, catching that moment of terror in Chloe’s eyes as Beca pushed her hands against Chloe’s rolling hips on top of her so she could shift them both to the space below. Beca’s hand never left its place against the small of Chloe’s back, guiding her down as she rubbed small, soothing circles against skin vastly overheated from nothing to do with the fire right next to them.

 

So it wasn’t exactly as Chloe had imagined it time and time again; there were no rose petals or candles or a perfectly crafted soundtrack of their favorite shared songs from over the years (heavy on the Beyonce, obvs). But there was Beca, and there was Chloe. And there were Beca’s teeth nipping at Chloe’s neck, her hands fluttering lightly as she wordlessly asked for permission at the edge of Chloe’s shorts, her fingers slipping inside as Chloe gasped and cursed and begged on top of her. Soon after, those hands threaded into red locks between her thighs, thighs dotted with marks that Chloe was desperate to leave because she knew it was the last time and it was selfish, but she couldn’t care if she tried.

 

They’d laid there in silence after, Chloe curled into Beca’s side as the last remnants of the fire crackled next to them. And Chloe had a million questions to ask, saved and categorized and prioritized because that neurotic edge that had manifested itself over the year in performance stress and caterwauling over the lost Puppy Bowl opportunity certainly didn’t fall short when it came to Beca Mitchell. But really, what right did Chloe have to break that moment as Beca placed a kiss to her temple before sitting up, taking in Chloe’s flushed countenance with a furrowed brow, and saying that they should probably be heading back.

 

One long last kiss after they’d gotten dressed, and that was it. It didn’t really matter that that was the last time, because the important thing was that the Bellas had found their sound. And it wasn’t awkward going forwards, because they were Beca and Chloe, and the fact that they’d seen each other naked (okay, naked again) really couldn’t change much.

 

So they’d come up with the set-list, contacted the Bella alumnae, and pretty much blown the roof off at worlds. They hoisted the trophy together high over their heads, captains and friends as always, and Chloe looked over to Beca on her left, reflected lights setting those gun-steel blues ablaze. For just a second, Beca looked back, and even for that instant that her gaze was leveled on Chloe’s, it was almost enough.

 

Beca and Chloe found themselves whisked off stage on the shoulders of the rest of the Bellas, Amy spraying champagne from atop a platform as they passed by. The after-party became a blur of shots and dancing and endless pictures that would all eventually end up on Stacie’s Instagram with ‘#bell-essed” in the caption. At some point, Chloe pulled Beca to the bathroom with her, the brunette standing outside and whining that they were missing the song request she’d put into the DJ. Chloe had rolled her eyes, closing the bathroom door carefully behind her with a drunken giggle before she turned back around and Beca’s lips pushed up against her own.

 

Needy thumbs slipped into the waistband of Chloe’s jeans, palms pressing against her abdomen as the remaining fingers slid under her shirt. It was all instinct as Chloe pulled at the small of Beca’s back, drawing her closer while still expecting this all to turn out to be some booze-fueled fantasy, the burning specter beneath her hands turning into nothing but smoke if she even opened her eyes. But the hips rolling against her own were real, the teeth dragging against the line of her neck were real, and that hand gripping her wrist and pulling her out of the auditorium was sure as hell real.

 

For all of her years whining about cardio, Beca sure as hell set a punishing pace back to the hotel, wordless and wild and every so often stumbling over small cracks in the pavement, only to stumble forwards laughing. Taking in Beca’s mussed hair and unabashedly wide eyes, Chloe really had no choice but to follow. She’d follow her to hell and back, which she was beginning to fear was closer than she’d anticipated.

 

Beca had Chloe’s shirt off all of three seconds after they entered the room, tossing it to the side and dragging her hands up Chloe’s sides with a force that left the older girl panting and breathless as she was pressed to the bed behind her. There was a momentary pause as Beca pulled off both of their shoes, eyes never leaving Chloe’s for an instant before she climbed up after her, straddling her hips with one hand on either side of Chloe’s head.

 

And she stayed like that for a moment, just letting her gaze roam across Chloe’s face, the only light illuminating her own coming from the occasional headlights of cars passing by outside. “Beca?” Chloe wasn’t sure whether she’d spoken from worry or need or any of the thousands of instincts fighting for control of her mind, but the word seemed to snap its subject out of whatever lost reverie she’d been in.

 

Beca’s thumb landed on Chloe’s bottom lip, running lightly from one corner to the other as Chloe’s mouth instinctively dropped slightly open. And Beca’s lips followed a moment later, following her thumb’s pattern before her teeth caught hold of that same lip, pulling back slowly as a moan escaped from Chloe’s mouth.

 

She really expected some sort of sarcastic remark or confident smirk or, really, anything other than Beca grinding her hips against Chloe’s body in response, thrumming her approval with a sound from deep in her throat that sent vibrations scattering across Chloe’s body. Chloe couldn’t help it as she squirmed beneath Beca, her hands flying up to latch underneath her upper thighs and cursing Stacie for picking pants as the lower half of their costume.

 

Beca’s head fell back as Chloe’s grip moved up her legs, her breath coming in short, heavy gasps. One hand fell onto Chloe’s shoulder, short nails digging into her skin. Chloe had just removed one hand and begun the process of battling with the button of Beca’s jeans when the younger girl swatted it away, breaking Chloe’s attempted pout with a searing kiss that was sloppy, needy, and somehow perfect.

 

Chloe wasn’t exactly sure of the moment when her pants landed on the floor, but she certainly was not in a position to complain as she felt Beca’s thumbs hook under and drag her underwear down to the floor. Her hips raised of their own accord as Beca placed a line of kisses down her abdomen, slowly and agonizingly skipping over to and riding up the inside of her thighs until Chloe was begging, pleading for Beca to take pity on her.

 

And maybe she pulled Beca’s hair as her fingers latched into place against Beca’s scalp, but there were things she was doing with her tongue that just did not permit anything else. Chloe was lost and wasted in an instant, and she couldn’t care less. It was all Beca’s tongue, hands, and eyes as she stared intently up at Chloe from between her thighs, daring Chloe to look away for even a second as she broke beneath her again and again.

 

So she needed a moment to recover, but Chloe sure as hell returned the favor, wiping any hint of smugness off Beca’s face as she drew out every moment until the point where Chloe was unsure whether she or Beca needed it more. And this time, they could just stay there wrapped up in and around each other, because of course they were sharing a room. Beca drifted off to sleep first, head nestled up against Chloe’s shoulder, but Chloe took her time, relishing in those moments where she could look over and see that Beca was there, was real, and was hers, even if it was the last time.

 

The last time turned into three more during the time between when they returned from Worlds and when they officially had to clear out of the Bella house. So the officially initiated Emily as a member, packed up all that they’d managed to aggregate over three years in the same house, and spent their nights with Chloe pressing Beca against the wall, with Beca on the kitchen counter and Chloe between her legs, and up on that rooftop deck with a blanket and a bottle of wine. Every time, just before Beca dropped off to sleep, Chloe would place a kiss on her temple, and Beca would turn to face her, brow slightly furrowed as if she was trying to unravel some new Gordian Knot in Chloe’s eyes, frozen in the instants that Chloe was decreasingly certain were the last of their kind.

 

They spent the final night sitting on Beca’s bed, laughing over old videos of Bella choreography from Chloe’s first three years. Shoulders pressed together with one of Beca’s arms slung around Chloe’s waist, it was just enough that Chloe could forget that she was flying home without any plans for the future, that Beca would be jetting off in a month to LA, and that they were leaving behind everything that they knew and shared.

 

When the final video ended, Chloe pressed Beca’s laptop closed, shifting slightly to allow Beca to lean even further into her side. “Hey Becs?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Are you scared at all?”

 

Beca sat up, hand moving to the middle of Chloe’s back as she turned to face her. “Of what?”

 

“I don’t know,” Chloe said with a shrug. “The future? LA? Leaving Barden?”

 

Beca shrugged. “I mean, it was always kind of the plan. Barden was more of the surprise than anything else.”

 

“Okay, but.” And Chloe really couldn’t think of what else to say, dropping her hands to toy in her lap as she stared down at the floor. “Um. I just—“

 

“What’s up, Chlo?” That crease in Beca’s brow that Chloe had always found adorable, yet had tried her best to decrease in frequency over the years, was back, Beca’s hand dropping to settle over Chloe’s own as she waited for a response.

 

“What do you think about me coming to LA?” It was out before she’d really thought about it. Truthfully, it was probably a bit reckless even for a girl who had failed Russian Lit for three years to sing in an a capella group (or to stick around for a girl she really thought she had no chance with), but it was out there and there was nothing she could do at that point.

 

The fingers that had been dancing over her hands stilled and drew back, falling onto Beca’s legs as she chewed at her bottom lip. “Um…what do you mean?”

 

Chloe took a deep breath, staring intently in the direction of Beca’s eyes in that way that had worked so many times, but those deep blue eyes remained on the pattern of the comforter. “Well, I don’t really have a set path, you know? And I’m sure there are plenty of underprivileged youths and exotic dancing opportunities in LA and I figure it’d be nice for both of us to know someone there. Right?”

 

Beca’s shoulders rose and fell slowly, her hair dropping to cover her eyes as Chloe waited for something. Anything.

 

Well, maybe anything other than Beca jumping off the bed, hands raking through her hair as she paced restlessly in front of Chloe. Chloe swung her legs onto the floor, leaning forwards with her hands pressing against the mattress. “Beca?”

 

“Chloe, I—“ Beca’s voice was high and clipped, almost breathy for once.

 

“What’s wrong?” Chloe slowly pushed herself off the bed, reaching out for Beca. The younger girl finally looked up, only to step back with her hands held out in front of her.

 

“Do you really think that I _need_ someone in LA?”

 

And Beca could’ve slapped her in the face, swung wild with that haymaker she’d displayed freshman year, and Chloe would’ve recovered in an instant. Here, however, her mouth just dropped open, face flushing as she tried to come up with any sort of damage control. “I didn’t mean that you needed someone. I just—“

 

“Really?” Beca shook her head, hands falling to furl at her sides. “Because it certainly seemed like it.”

 

“Maybe I need you.” So she’d crossed a line there, but they’d made a game of crossing as many lines as possible in the last few months, so what was this one compared to any other?

 

Beca’s eyes snapped up finally, wide and terrified and fluttering beneath dark lashes. “What?”

 

Chloe took a step forwards, Beca backing towards Chloe’s finally empty closet behind her. Her back hit the door with a quiet thud, and Chloe closed the space between them, placing her hands on Beca’s shoulders. “You’re the most important person in my life, Becs,” Chloe murmured. “I need you, and I’d follow you anywhere if you’d let me. I just…I just want to be with you.”

 

“That’s a lot.” Beca’s shoulders rose and fell erratically beneath Chloe’s hands, and she knew she should step back, knew she should let go, but all the fears from every moment between them were drowning her, and so she only gripped at Beca harder. She was her lifeboat, her only hope even as she dashed holes in any chance of Chloe keeping herself afloat on her own. “I—that’s too much to put on me.”

 

So, realistically, the tears had probably been falling for the last minute or so, but Chloe only noticed them when she felt salt on her lips, quivering and desperate. “Beca, _please_. I don’t want to scare you, but I—I can’t leave here without you.”

 

“That’s not my responsibility, Chloe.” And Beca was sliding around her body, heading for the door, and Chloe couldn’t help herself as she reached out wildly, grasping at Beca’s wrist and pulling her back.

 

“Don’t try to pretend that you feel nothing.” It was somewhere between a threat and a plea, and she couldn’t place it properly, pure emotion and heartbreak filling every atom to her core. “I _know_ you, and I know _us_ , and that’s bullshit. Just—just wait. Please. Just talk to me.”

 

For the longest second of Chloe’s life, Beca was still, eyes across the room at that cracked door. There was no straining against Chloe’s hand, no motion of any kind. With a deep breath, Beca turned, slow and precise as her eyes met Chloe’s.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

And that was it. Chloe’s hand fell slack against her side and Beca slipped out of the door. Her flight was first anyways, even if Chloe had promised to give her a ride and still woke to that alarm, lying in silence as she heard Beca move about the floor below. The front door slammed behind her, and Chloe found just another set of keys on the kitchen counter, mixed in with the rest.

 

And, really, that was all.

* * *

 

So maybe it was a bit ironic that Chloe ended up in New York after all. She even met up with Tom a few times, laughing over drinks as Chloe shared photos from Worlds and Tom talked about his fiancée. The next time they got together, Tom’s fiancée came, along with a friend from work. And that was how Chloe met Jenna.

 

Jenna was tall, blonde, and statuesque, a recent graduate in Economics from Duke working in consulting. She was kind, warm, open, loving, and really everything that Chloe needed.

 

She didn’t freak out when Chloe burst into tears after the first time they kissed, handing her a box of tissues and listening as Chloe went on for hours about the girl who had broken her heart. So they moved slowly, no immediate burning, desperate looks from across the room, hidden beneath smiles and jokes and coquettish winks tossed out with no meaning. Chloe quickly realized that she’d forgotten how dating was supposed to work, that it was supposed to be actually enjoyable rather than painful, and that she should be able to gush about her latest relationship to her friends rather than drunkenly pining over the phone about how things were never going to work out in the end.

 

And, unsurprisingly, Chloe was the first to drop the ‘l’ word, her head in Jenna’s lap as they watched Chloe’s favorite movie for somewhere around the fifteenth time (because who could ever really get sick of _The Princess Bride?_ ). Jenna responded by leaning down and placing a kiss over the tiny scar on Chloe’s forehead before repeating the same sentiment over and over until even Chloe Beale could forget the movie playing in front of them.

 

They moved in together after six months. Aubrey cautioned that maybe it was a bit too fast until she met Jenna a week later and enthusiastically bestowed her blessing. She pulled Chloe aside at the Starbucks while Jenna was in the bathroom, looking Chloe straight in the eyes as she gripped her hands.

 

“You know that this is good, right?” Aubrey asked, her dead-set gaze the only thing stopping her friend from instinctively bursting into laughter at the uncomfortable situation. “ _She’s_ good, Chloe.”

 

“Of course I do, Bree.”

 

“Just promise me that you’ll let yourself have this, okay?” Chloe opened her mouth to respond, hushed immediately as Aubrey vigorously shook her head. “I mean it. You deserve this. You _need_ to know that.”

 

Before Chloe could answer, she’d felt a pair of hands slip around her waist, lips pressing up against her cheek as she was whirled around. “Sorry, Aubrey,” Jenna said with a shrug. “Can’t really help myself around this one.”

 

It really was good, and, for once, Chloe had to appreciate the uncomplicated nature of being loved unconditionally by someone who wanted nothing but the same in return. So, after four years of dramatic heartbreak and all too angsty tears, Chloe fell asleep at night, wrapped in her girlfriend’s arms. And she’d wake up the next morning in pretty much the same position, because they both were almost hilariously sound sleepers. Chloe would shift against Jenna, unable to stop the goofy grin spreading across her lips when the other girl always, even before she reached consciousness, nuzzled her nose into Chloe’s hair with something somewhere between a moan and a sigh.

 

And she’d still hear about Beca every so often. Chloe kept in touch with all of the Bellas as best as she could manage, especially Stacie and Emily. Emily was somewhat of an adopted child to her at this point, and Chloe’s career as a fourth grade teacher only heightened her naturally mothering instincts. She heard all about the new Bellas, and how Emily had chosen ‘Titanium’ as the audition song that year because she’d “always loved the story of how Chloe got Beca to join the Bellas” (okay so maybe Chloe had broken out a bottle of wine after that conversation). And Chloe really, just _really_ needed to come visit and meet everyone, because Emily just wanted to make her proud. Even Beca had already dropped by, stunning the new girls into uncharacteristic silence with her nonchalant LA vibe and the casual mentions of artists she’d worked with in just her first few months.

 

The Stacie conversation had been more to the point on the subject of Beca. Once Aubrey had headed off to rid the world of ladders, Stacie had become Chloe’s in-person confidante, and certainly more than once had been Chloe’s companion on these regular wine nights. When Stacie could find a second away from her med school classes, they’d catch up, Stacie gushing about how Nashville really _was_ living up to all of Chloe’s stories while Chloe talked about Jenna or her “munchkins,” as she called her students, or just New York in general.

 

But the silence always inevitably fell, and there were only so many questions that Chloe could ask about medical procedures before it became wholly evident that she had no clue what Stacie had said. Stacie would wait for a few seconds, click her tongue, and begin with the same sentence. “So I talked to Beca.”

 

Chloe had never told her precisely what had happened between them. She figured it wasn’t fair to Beca, and, against all of her instincts designed for self-preservation, Chloe still had an absurd amount of loyalty towards someone who had tossed her aside like a ruined dishrag. Stacie, however, was not an idiot, and she realized pretty early on that the two had stopped communicating in any manner. It was easy enough; you don’t go from five Facebook posts per day, Snapchat best friends, and mutual Instagram stalkers to nothing for no reason.

 

Stacie had had the decency to never press Chloe about it, and so she was careful at first to completely avoid the subject. Eventually, Chloe couldn’t help herself, though, and she began to bring Beca up in a decreasingly subtle manner until Stacie started to reserve that tiny moment at the end of their call for the ‘Beca check-in.’

 

From what Stacie had reported, Beca was doing well. She worked constantly, and really talked about nothing besides that. But that was Beca, Beca who, on the rare occasions that she found something to care about, threw every piece of herself, heart and soul into it. Beca would live and die for what she believed in, push herself to the point of exhaustion to accomplish her goals. And really, when she finally collapsed at the end, the finished product was always something pretty damn incredible. It was clear when Beca wanted something despite her best efforts.

 

Maybe it was best that Chloe had gotten out before she was just another casualty on the road towards something Beca really wanted. 

* * *

There were definitely benefits to having a brilliant, exceedingly successful girlfriend. Chloe had always had a thing for people who rambled on passionately about their interests, even if she had no clue what the hell they were saying. Something about the way their eyes would light up as they lost track of their words, stumbling over every syllable in a mad dash to communicate whatever was firing through their brains at a pace they couldn’t control. It hit that fine, perfect point of simultaneously adorable and hot as hell, and it was really one of Jenna’s specialties.

 

But while Chloe got to learn a hell of a lot more about corporate consulting and the healthcare industry than she’d ever imagined, she also spent a fair number of nights alone. It had been truly challenging at first, handling the fact that her girlfriend was gone about three quarters of the time on assignments. Modern technology, long-distance Skype dates, and, okay, to be completely honest, phone sex had helped ease the transition. Really, it made the time they had together just that much better, every built-up piece of tension, every night they’d fallen asleep murmuring “I love you’s” across the line, and every Snap that Chloe sure as hell screenshotted coming together to the point where Chloe literally tackled Jenna the second she heard the door open, keeping her pinned against the wall for longer than she’d care to admit.

 

And Chloe had come up with a routine of her own at that point. When Friday night rolled around, she’d order a pizza and call Jenna the second she’d hung up with the restaurant. If she was able to pick up, they’d talk for hours, only interrupted when Chloe paid the deliveryman and then inevitably dropped sauce on whatever she was wearing and ran to the kitchen for paper towels. However, there were many nights when Jenna just couldn’t pick up, and Chloe would receive about sixteen apology texts after the ignored call notification. It wasn’t an issue at all, so Chloe would assure her over and over that she had nothing to be sorry for, and to just continue “consulting her cute ass off.” The pictures she’d always send along right after probably helped assuage Jenna’s concerns as well.

 

It was one of those nights in October, and Jenna had been stuck in a meeting with the client’s lawyers for four straight hours, poring through SEC line items at an agonizingly slow pace. What Chloe had sent her detailing her precise plans for the second Jenna returned home on Tuesday probably didn’t help her concentration, but everyone needed a bit of a distracting break at some point, right?

 

Chloe had just paid for her pizza and resumed her umpteenth re-watch of ‘Scrubs’ when the doorbell rang again. And of course she’d accidentally stolen the poor pizza guy’s pen, so she paused the show, dropped the slice she’d just taken a bite of, and plodded over to the door. “I am such an idiot, sorry about that. I know you probably don’t have an—“

 

The delivery guy had been almost hilariously tall, ducking awkwardly in the hallway of Chloe’s building as he pulled her box out of the bag hanging off his shoulder. Chloe’s eyes automatically had traveled up as she opened the door, only to meet nothing but the stain shaped strangely like a narwhal on the across the hall neighbor’s door. Looking down afterwards, while the natural impulse, was really a mistake.

 

“So what don’t I have now?”

 

Beca’s voice hadn’t lost any hint of its classic bite; if anything, the sardonic slant was in fuller force than Chloe had heard it since Beca’s freshman year. Paired with the classic Mitchell smirk, not to mention the dark jeans clinging to Beca’s legs and the top with a neckline that certainly plunged lower than the college edition ever would have dared, Chloe knew that the right thing to do was to slam the door closed right there and then before sprinting into the bathroom for a shower with very Arctic conditions.

 

But they were Beca and Chloe, so Chloe just stood there gaping in silence as her hands fell open and closed at her sides, the hapless pizza guy’s pen clattering to the floor. “Beca?”

 

Chloe found herself backing up as Beca advanced, the taller girl cautious and trembling and stumbling over the threshold of her own apartment. The door was closed before she even knew what was happening, and Chloe Beale was alone in her darkened apartment with Beca Mitchell. The other girl’s eyes were covered by the lack of light in the hall, along with the hair that fell across her face as she waited for something. Anything.

 

The confirmation that this was, in fact, Beca Mitchell, and not just some cool, LA fashionista in something strangely akin to Chloe’s former best friend’s body came when Beca raked her fingers through her hair in that nervous fashion of hers, hands tucking into her pockets after as she shifted from one foot to another, eyes low. And Chloe realized that even Beca was falling back into old, comfortable habits, waiting for flirty Chloe Beale to wink and giggle as her partner in crime rolled her eyes and followed Chloe’s lead pretty much anywhere. Because it had also gone like that, always had worked like that. Well, maybe almost.

 

For her part, Chloe was nowhere close to leading. She was kind of struggling with breathing at that point, and the rise and fall of Beca’s chest in that shirt, because apparently the brunette was a bit short of breath herself, was not doing much to engage Chloe’s higher brain functions. It was Beca. It was Beca Mitchell, and logic, reason, and anything that had evolved over time in the transition from ape to humankind had no place in Chloe’s brain when it came to Beca Mitchell.

 

That safe space Chloe had, that physical boundary she’d established by backing nearly into the wall behind her, was ripped from her as Beca finally looked up, letting her bottom lip slip from between her teeth. Some crucial decision about which Chloe was not privy had been made, and Beca strode forwards to latch hands on either side of Chloe’s jaw, tilting her head downwards before their lips met.

 

The sound that escaped Chloe’s mouth fell somewhere between a squeak and a moan, though maybe she was kidding herself about the former. Her back was slammed against the wall as Beca’s hips pushed against her, and Chloe’s hands instinctively flew up to press against the small of Beca’s back, fingers digging into the fabric of her shirt as Chloe pawed for any reality left in her world.

 

Not that Beca was probably the right person to go to for something like that, answering Chloe’s desperate keen with fingers threading into her hair as she pressed her body flush against the other girl’s. Her other hand dropped to sneak under Chloe’s loose shirt, and Chloe heard some barely intelligible curse slip from between her own lips as Beca’s touch spread wildfire across her skin.

 

And Beca was clutching and grabbing and dragging like she always had, that poisonous passion that was simultaneously intoxicating and reminiscent of a perfect disaster. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times, break my heart, show up at my door and say literally six innocuous words to push me enough over the point that I can almost forget my possibly flawless girlfriend a thousand miles away? Shame probably didn’t cover it.

 

As Beca’s hand slipped into Chloe’s shorts, fingers wildly scrambling as if Beca couldn’t stand being alone in her own form for any moment longer, that small shred of conscience that Chloe knew was in there somewhere scraped itself up from the floor, battling its way past the pounding in Chloe’s ears and her own willful selfishness. She was suffocating, beneath Beca’s body, beneath reality and every ounce of her being that she’d pieced back together over the past few months, and she wasn’t sure whether the screaming in her head was from that Jiminy Cricket-esque voice or from her desire to quash it.

 

Beca’s teeth dragged roughly against the skin of Chloe’s neck as Beca was pushed backwards, stumbling and barely catching herself with fingers gripping the edge of the wall corner. Chloe kept her hands up, not knowing whether it was from paralyzed shock that she’d actually gotten her body to cooperate while Beca was doing truly incredible things with her mouth against Chloe’s neck, or whether it was some form of protection.

 

Either way, Beca’s eyes were visible for the first time, the whites wide and trembling as Beca’s gaze flitted frenetically across Chloe’s face. It wasn’t confusion, fear, or anger; really, Chloe had seen enough of those expressions on Beca to know precisely what any of those faces would look like. This was a rarer one, one that Beca always did her best to hide with a well-timed joke or sarcastic eye roll. This face only showed in those moments when Beca Mitchell’s carefully constructed walls had crumbled, layer after layer leaving the scared, needy, longing soul behind them out in the cold.

 

And it was weird, because Chloe had never really been the direct cause of it before. She’d tried her best over the years to drop Beca’s walls, certainly, but it had been gradual and slow, testing small boundaries as she could and making sure that, above all, anything she was doing was ultimately for Beca’s sake and not her own. So maybe busting into the shower had been a bit of a dramatic first step, but that was just a physical wall. Chloe had let Beca take the lead on pulling down emotional walls as she saw fit, and so she’d done it with a nervous smile, a self-conscious giggle, or those moments when she’d meet Chloe’s eyes with that ethereal warmth that only her almost impossibly black-blue eyes could carry, wordlessly saying, “this is all right. This is okay.”

 

In fact, Chloe had kind of become Beca’s back-up wall, that final shield when she looked like she was about to collapse and fall apart with nothing left. So Chloe had seen the walls, been the walls, and helped them drop as Beca willed. This, directed in Chloe’s direction, though? This was new.

 

“Chloe, I—“

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

Beca swallowed heavily, staring at the ground as she shuffled from one foot to the other. “I…I needed to—I needed to see you.”

 

“You needed to see me.” There was an edge in Chloe’s voice that caught both of them off guard, and Chloe had to curse her situation as an angry crier because she couldn’t tell at all whether she was more in the mode of breaking down and weeping with a tub of ice cream or going John Cena on Beca’s ass and flinging her out of the window.

 

“Yeah.” Things really had changed, because Beca actually held her ground as Chloe stepped forwards slowly, looking up at her ex-best friend with cautious eyes. “It’s been a while, and um—I think I fucked up, Chlo.”

 

The nickname was dropped so casually as if they were just sitting on Chloe’s bed, watching some movie that Beca had only agreed to after some snack-based bribery. Beca was no longer this hip LA music producer in a jacket that definitely cost more than Chloe’s rent for the month, but rather the scared freshman that Chloe had spotted across the activity fair.

 

So she really couldn’t be blamed when her hand landed softly on top of Beca’s. The other girl tensed beneath her before relaxing and leaning into the grasp in that way that had allowed Chloe to occasionally convince herself that she held some special place in Beca’s world where Beca couldn’t help but want to draw closer. “Did something happen? At work, or –“

 

“That’s not what I mean,” Beca murmured. “I think I fucked up with…I think I fucked us up.”

 

‘Us.’ Us was new too, something that Chloe had consciously avoided referring to them as throughout the years, because she was already testing enough boundaries with the rest of her behavior. But here Beca was, letting that caustic word slip from between shaking lips as she looked up at Chloe for any sort of reaction, confirmation, dismissal, or otherwise.

 

“Us?”

 

Whether Beca knew she had her there or not was unclear, but she stepped in closer until her hips were resting against Chloe’s own, the fingers of one hand lightly running up and down the underside of Chloe’s forearm. Chloe’s breath caught audibly in her throat, and she did her best to remain still even as every overcharged atom of her being was pressing against her skin in some desperate attempt to be freed. Because there wasn’t enough space in Chloe alone anymore, just one form ill-equipped to contain the all-consuming blaze that Beca Mitchell had set in her long ago.

 

“I was stupid, Chlo.” They’d slowly taken a few steps back towards the wall, less of the stalk of a predatory game like when Beca had first entered the apartment and more of two bodies moving wholly in concert because they had no other option. “I just—I freaked out, and I’m sorry.”

 

And all of Chloe’s space belonged to Beca, her back against the wall with one of Beca’s hand lightly gripping her waist as the other rubbed small circles into the skin on the back of her neck. “Beca, I—I can’t. You—I mean, I—this…this isn’t right.”

 

“I need this, Chloe.” Beca’s cheek brushed up against Chloe’s as she leaned up, her breath ghosting over Chloe’s ear and forcing a shiver that Beca could surely feel beneath her hands. “I need you.”

 

If it hadn’t all been enough before, those three words alone sealed it. Some part of Chloe’s brain was screaming that it was too little, too late, but Chloe’s body was grabbing Beca by the collar of her jacket as Chloe’s lips trailed kisses down Beca’s jawline. Beca groaned, her hands falling to wrap around Chloe’s back and allow the other girl easier access as she nipped at the curve of her neck.

 

The expensive jacket was forgotten on the floor in an instant, and Chloe slammed Beca against the opposite wall. Chloe’s hands made quick work of Beca’s shirt as well, the sound of the fabric hitting the floor breaking the symphony of gasps and moans and the occasional curse that had filled the room before. When Beca started palming Chloe’s breast through her shirt, Chloe pulled her lips back from Beca’s, their eyes holding for an instant before Chloe wordlessly grabbed Beca by the wrist and led her down the hallway.

 

As soon as the back of Chloe’s knees hit the bed behind her, Beca pushed forwards, Chloe landing on the bed with a slight bounce as Beca pulled at the waistline of Chloe’s shorts. Raising her hips slightly, Chloe gasped as Beca’s mouth landed on her hipbone while her hands discarded the shorts on the floor behind her. One of Beca’s hands ran roughly up the inside of Chloe’s thigh, and Chloe desperately tried to press her body upwards for any possibility of further contact with the destructive force above her.

 

Beca came to straddle Chloe’s hips as she shucked up her shirt, finally pulling back as she looked down at the woman below her. Chloe knew she was a mess; in the first place, she hadn’t been expecting company, and Beca had already made quick work of the messy bun she’d had her hair in when she first opened the door. The skin on her neck was boiling from Beca’s consistent attention, and her chest heaved hopelessly as she attempted to pull in any air left in the room around them.

 

Left thumb traveling lightly across Chloe’s collarbone, Beca placed a surprisingly light kiss on Chloe’s lips, long and lingering and slow as Chloe’s hands came to rest on Beca’s hips. “You okay there, Chlo?”

 

Chloe chuckled against Beca’s mouth. “I’m a lot of things,” she said. “’Okay’ is probably not on the list right now.”

 

And suddenly Beca’s hips were rolling beneath her hands and against her body, and Chloe moaned out some sort of guttural combination of words that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “That’s all right,” Beca whispered, kissing her way from Chloe’s lips to nip at the edge of her ear. “’Okay’s’ a bit too dull for my tastes.”

 

“Yeah?” Chloe barely even got the single word out, stuttering and gasping against Beca’s lips and hands and hips and generally all-encompassing presence on top of her.

 

“Yeah.” Chloe felt a hand slip around her back before her bra slacked and was pulled off by sure fingers that quickly claimed this new territory.

 

Chloe wasn’t really sure whether her brain was moving too quickly or painfully slowly at this moment as Beca began to shift to move down her body again, but whatever place she was at brain-wise, it certainly had an impulsive streak. Just as Beca pushed herself up from Chloe’s abdomen and began to resettle further down the bed, Chloe moved her hips so the apex of Beca’s thighs landed right on top of Chloe’s leg as she lowered her body.

 

And Beca had never been loud in bed, though that really could’ve been influenced by the fact that they’d been sneaking around previously. Either way, this high-pitched, wild panting whimper that escaped Beca’s mouth was something that Chloe sure as hell wanted to hear again. She pressed her leg upward once more, and Beca’s body followed as she repeated the motion again and again, dark hair falling and sticking against slick skin on her face as Beca’s hand tightened at Chloe’s shoulder.

 

Lips slightly parted, eyes closed with a furrowed brow, Beca was undeniably one of the most gorgeous things Chloe had ever seen. The first time Chloe had seen that sort of wild, unabashed fervor in Beca had been while they worked on the setlist for Nationals Beca’s freshman year, when she’d leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, headphones over her ears and Chloe knew that she’d finally gotten it just right. And she saw it again many times going forwards as Beca took control of the Bellas’ musical agenda, that moment in the middle of rehearsal when Beca stood frozen over her laptop, a slow transition from concentration to this strange euphoria that never failed to grab Chloe’s attention.

 

So Chloe probably shouldn’t have been surprised that first night at the campfire when she looked up from between Beca’s thighs and saw that same expression as the grip in her hair grew more insistent and desperate. Because if there was anything that Beca Mitchell consistently gave all of herself to, it was music. Why should she treat any other sort of passion in her life any differently?

 

Beca seemed to have let her body take control at this point, rolling into Chloe’s leg even before Chloe consciously met her there. It would’ve been uncomfortable, Beca’s short nails digging into her shoulder and the weight of another (admittedly tiny) human riding her body, but Chloe would’ve been lying if she said she gave a shit. Beca coming undone above her, because of her, and for her was enough to drive any concerns away.

 

Beca’s jeans limited Chloe’s options a bit at that point, but she was still able to elicit another groan as she cupped the curve of Beca’s ass with one hand, running her fingers up the inside seam of one of her legs. But Beca was close regardless, whether it was due to built-up tension or Chloe’s particularly diligent workout routine, and Chloe could hear the telltale shuddering breaths and feel the shaking of Beca’s leg beneath her hand.

 

One particularly purposeful angling of Chloe’s leg, and Beca was gone, as always trying and failing to hold herself back with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. Chloe stopped her motion, holding Beca up by her hips as her body jarred, trembled, and eventually stilled.

 

Beca lowered her body down to rest against Chloe’s as her breath slowed, Chloe’s fingers tangling in dark hair that fell over Beca’s shoulders. “And I’m not even the one who had all her clothes off,” Beca murmured, lips against Chloe’s cheek.

 

“I like improvising,” Chloe said. Beca chuckled, drawing in a few long breaths through her mouth as Chloe took note of where Beca’s hands had landed. “Hey, Becs?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“Your hand’s kinda on my boob.”

 

“Is it?” Beca turned her head to the side to confirm the fact. “Well, how about that?”

 

Beca’s thumb slowly brushed the underside of Chloe’s breast, and Chloe felt her body jerk underneath Beca’s as the smaller girl watched her carefully for a reaction. “I mean,” Beca purred into Chloe’s ear. “Is that a problem?”

 

“Depends on what you do about it.”

 

That was another thing about Beca Mitchell; she was never one to back down from a challenge. So maybe Chloe had relied on that a little bit, and Beca was suddenly everywhere, flooding her system with damaging, scorching fire that spread from Beca’s hands and mouth and teeth and tongue until she couldn’t take it for a second longer, leaving nail marks of her own against Beca’s back.

 

And it was like that first time all over, though the fire by them was completely their own, and Chloe lay there with her eyes shut as Beca pulled herself back from between Chloe’s legs. Closing her eyes was easier, because she was at that point where the lines between reality and the dream world to which she would go where she and Beca could actually do this was too blurred. From a less dramatic standpoint, it meant that she could avoid any chance of seeing the picture on her bedside table.

 

Their bedside table, really. Or Jenna’s, because she’d bought it and brought it home from IKEA and spent the better part of a Saturday assembling it along with a wardrobe as Chloe sat by with a bottle of wine and watched, giggling at every time one of the seven billion screws got lost under the bed. The bed that Chloe had just had sex with another woman in.

 

She opened her eyes as she felt a shifting of weight, and she was completely prepared to just watch Beca go, wordless or maybe with some sort of awkward wave. That would’ve been simple and expected and Chloe could just lie there and feel like shit because she knew she deserved it and get screamed at by Aubrey and try her best to recover any shred of integrity or dignity that she could.

 

But then Beca was back, sitting up at the head of the bed. Her legs were crossed, eyes on the floor as her hands fiddled restlessly in her lap. Chloe pushed herself up onto her elbows, watching as Beca worked at her bottom lip with her teeth, jaw clenching as everything was all too silent.

 

“Beca, are you—“

 

“Yeah, no.” Beca sighed, rolling her shoulders back and dropping her head against the wall with a quiet thud. “I’m just thinking.” She tilted her head so she was facing Chloe, eyes over her shoulder and resting on the table nearby. “So that’s Jenna?”

 

“Yeah.” Chloe could barely manage the word, certainly couldn’t follow Beca’s gaze at all, and just waited as the other girl’s mouth parted with a sigh.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

It wasn’t at all what Chloe had expected, the tremulousness of Beca’s voice cutting through any defensive preparations that Chloe was making. Because it was _Beca_. Beca who had joined the Bellas because Chloe had accosted her in the shower, Beca who had poured every bit of herself and her talent into making this group of weirdos shine. Beca who had somehow become the most important part of Chloe’s life even when she’d recklessly given air to the needy flames of Chloe’s soul and then left her to burn.

 

And then, for once, it was Beca who’d come back, on the verge of tears and wanting, needing Chloe so much that she could barely even get the words out. Chloe could understand that, four years of failing to get through her best friend’s head that she was pretty sure she couldn’t live without her. So the “sorry” was a bit confusing, because it could’ve been a “sorry I fucked you up and you cheated on your girlfriend” or “I’m sorry it had to be like this but I can’t let you go.” Or really anything else.

 

“Beca.” She brought those midnight eyes back to her with a single word, the hands in Beca’s lap stilling. “I—you need to explain. Because I just did something horrible, and maybe I’m weak or stupid or…I don’t even know. But I _need_ you to tell me.” When Beca didn’t react, Chloe pushed herself up to sit so they were eye to eye. “I don’t need you to tell me that you regret everything or that you’ve been in pain for months, because I’ve had enough of that for both of us.”

 

Beca’s mouth shifted for an instant, slight and quick. But she still waited, and Chloe knew she’d pushed too far at this point to turn back anyways. “Just tell me that you want this. That you want me. Tell me that you won’t run away and I’m yours.” It was Beca. It was always Beca, and reckless, irresponsible, heart-wrenching abandon was allowed when it came to Beca. “I just need that.”

 

Eyes flitting between Chloe’s, Beca’s mouth dropped open, almost as if she was willing anything to come out. She turned suddenly, her back facing Chloe with her hands on her knees. And Chloe didn’t panic this time, because she knew she couldn’t force her and she knew she was burned and wasted and branded with every piece of their relationship no matter the outcome of the next thirty seconds.

 

Beca’s shoulders shook, and Chloe caught something between a gasp and a sob drifting over her shoulder. She pushed herself up onto her knees, body barely an inch from Beca’s back as she heard the younger girl draw in a long breath of air.

 

“Beca?”

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I got too far from my angsty roots for a while and this is what happens. Take it as you will because I sure as shit haven’t figured out how to. Over on tumblr at Bicamitchell as always. Peace out, aca-people.


End file.
